Reward

Reward

By Johanna Brock

It was an accident. My mom thought it was a lucky accident.

“Serendipity!” She’d said. “A lucky accident at such a needed time.”

The last part was true. I needed what I received. But in the end, I wasn’t so sure I would describe what happened as ‘lucky’.

The scandal had consumed our small town for months. Grant Schiller had gone missing.

THE Grant Schiller.

Heir apparent to the keys to the town of Yauger, Illinois. His face might as well have been printed on the town’s money. As it was on it’s one and only billboard. Grant’s ancestors founded Yauger and now, over a hundred years and 3,000 or so people later, Grant sold its real estate.

Most of his business involved selling off parcels of his family’s own land. Usually to people from New York City or Philly. City people tired of urban life and searching for the small town feel of pastures, cows and rumor mills. Grant made a nice living and enjoyed his Big Fish Small Pond notoriety.

Only Grant Schiller was more like a Big Piranha in a Small Puddle. In my book, anyway.

The night he disappeared was almost twenty years past our graduation from Yauger High School, home of the fighting Yaks. And at least 4 years since I had last spoken to him at The White Flag Bar and Grill during our 15-year class reunion.

I still thought Grant Schiller was a jerk. I suspected most of us who’d grown up with him did.

Pompous, entitled and smug were words often associated with Grant Schiller. That and a 100 watt smile. He likely could have made it as a real estate mogul anywhere with that smile and his ridiculous confidence. But that concept never needed to be tested.

Senior year he beat up my best friend’s little brother. Terrence Langley was two years below us and didn’t present as a cool kid by any stretch of the imagination. Terrence’s effeminate ways and aversion to sports clearly insulted Grant. As if he was offended that any kid wouldn’t worship him and his on-court basketball feats. One day in Language Arts Terrence had the audacity to be laughing loudly at comic book he was reading during the morning announcements. Announcements which were trying to extoll Grant’s prowess with three pointers at the game the night before.

Grant told Terrence to shut up and Terrence stupidly chose to keep laughing. That was all it took. He challenged the poor kid to a fight. A fight! As if it were 1955 and there were still rumbles in town squares. Terrence was the smart underclassmen in a class otherwise dominated by average witted seniors. He’d never thrown a ball, much less a punch and everyone knew what would happen at that fight. Funny thing was, Terrence also had the confidence of a warrior and accepted the fight, repeatedly claiming that all of us should stand up to “The Horror that was Grant Schiller.” Even though he was a dead man walking, we should have respected how correct Terrence was.

He went to that fight and got pummeled by Grant. Naturally. But then he got out. Out of town and out of our puddle. He got a scholarship to NYU and went on to do well on Wall Street. His sister Kim still cut my hair at Locks of Yauger every other month. When I could afford it, that was. And she told me all about Terrence and his success. She claimed Terrence had “Never looked back” to Yauger, Illinois. While we all still swam in the puddle with the bully fish who had razor sharp teeth.

Grant up and disappeared like a puff of smoke from a farmer’s pipe one night after the town auction to benefit the schools. Grant was the highest bidder, of course. Shaking hands and loudly telling anyone who’d listen all about the trip he’d won and the art he’d purchased.

“For a good cause…” He’d said. “Anything for the kids of Yauger…”

I’d been on the wait staff that night at our small town country club that hosted the event. I witnessed the piranha in action.

He’d walked out after slapping the young coat check girl on the butt. Hard.

He walked out into the snow and no one had seen him since.

Until I found his little black book. I was walking Rusty on the paths behind the YMCA on the first day warm and dry enough to do so. Sticking up in the brush along the path was the tip of something black and out of place. Rusty went right to it, sniffing and curling his right paw up like a pointer spotting a game bird. It caught my eye, too.

I reached down to retrieve it. It was wet, but clearly a luxurious notebook. Real leather that had fought the good fight against the elements it had been reduced to dwelling in. I figured it belonged to one of the older gentlemen that walked the paths routinely.

I wondered if the moisture was going to make reading any identifying info impossible. The leather booked had swelled its protest at being trapped in the snow for who knew how long. I opened it carefully, feeling resistance of pages not wanting to separate. But then I saw words. Not smeared watercolor painting words, but actual words. I could clearly see the name of the book’s owner. Grant Schiller.

I froze, darting my eyes from my right to my left to check for nefarious characters scouting my discovery. Only Rusty was in sight. Snuffling and rooting along the path, his first find already forgotten.

I had found Grant Schiller’s calendar. The missing Grant Schiller whose absence had rocked a town that thrived on his abuse.

The suspects had been many. The husband of the woman he’d been having an affair with. The father of his wife – who was aware of his son-in-law's infidelities and had a temper. The man from the City of Brotherly Love who had purchased 5 acres from Grant which turned out to be unbuildable. I’d mentally added my own list of suspects throughout the media coverage of his disappearance. Like the poor coat check girl he’d man handled on his last night. Or any number of kids he’d tormented with his beauty and ferocity during school. Typically, piranhas weren’t adored by the other fish. The fact that his demise hadn’t been narrowed down to a specific cause was not a shock. Yet, here in my hands I held a possible clue.

I’d rounded up Rusty and driven that little black book straight to the police station.

The calendar listed Grant’s last appointment, a drink after the auction at the restaurant bar near the YMCA.

That information led to an arrest. And the discovery of Grant Schiller’s body, thawing much like his little black had been, just thirty yards deeper into the woods. It also led to a $20,000 reward for me. Put up by his family to solve their Crown Prince’s disappearance.

Mom said it was a serendipitous walk. I wasn’t so sure.

The $20,000 helped me save my home, which was on the brink of foreclosure. It paid for my on-line business courses to get me going to a better job. A better life.

But was it serendipitous for Terrence? Or Kim? Apparently, Terrence had ‘looked back’ more than Kim admitted to. Without me finding that little black book, they might have gotten away with it.

And in my opinion, puddles shouldn’t have piranhas anyway.