Henry Vanderson was president, had been for the past five years. He was somewhere in his fifties, and close to 300 pounds. He couldn't fit in most caves any more, but he was content to administrate. And bang the gavel.
I hadn't been here in a year and a half. Jed hadn't been here for almost two years. I didn't have a problem with the Grotto, but Jed did. I should have kept in contact with some of these guys. I joined to cave, and with Jed and I constantly caving after the Grotto split, it didn't become a priority.
Thirty seconds after the gavel, I zoned out. Membership totals and the reading of last month's minutes. I didn't recognize half the names they were talking about, and there were a lot of new faces at the tables.
One of the new faces stood up ceremoniously, some 16 year old kid. "I'd like to advance the motion to skip this crap and get right to the body." A few vocal supporters of it cheered. The news of the dead body was all through the caving community.
"Believe me, I want to get there too, Alex, but let's just get the procedure out of the way," Henry said, his jowl shaking a bit. "Plow through the Robert's Rules of Order and then get to the good stuff."
Five minutes later I was woken up by Henry shouting "Yee haw! That's out of the way, so let's skip to the excitement. As some, probably all of you know by know, a dead body was found in Simpson Cave last week. It even made the Star Ledger."
"I saw it on channel 9," Charles Osgood shouted. He worked for the Department of Parks in Union County. The regular joke was that he worked on a median strip of the Parkway.
"Two of our members were the cavers who discovered the body. Jed Halpern and Teddy Schiffhorst."
Darren, the membership officer, cleared his throat and rattled the cash box. I'd never seen any growth on his crew cut. I think he's Army Reserve. Doesn't say much.
"OK, not current members," Henry corrected, "but before they slacked off on dues they were as active as anyone."
"Yeah, Jed used to be a regular sight around here," Gunther said, "along with his gay lover Ted here."
I fished in my shirt pocket, found my middle finger, and flipped him it. Gunther and Jed didn't get along, and Gunther took it out by insulting him in public. Of course, the insults are usually aimed at me for some reason.
Jed stood up from his seat, bottle in hand. He loved getting attention like this, even from a group of people he didn't much like. "Well, this all started one fine Saturday morning. I had heard smoke was coming out of Simpson, so I was doing a damage check, see if someone left a case of empties inside."
"Pack it in, pack it out, that's how you do your cave drinking," Marv said. He worked for Budweiser and was generally the beer guru.
"Yeah, you're never one to pollute a cave with a gallon of piss," said Harry with a laugh. Harry was a history professor at some college, and had a mustache the size of a squirrel tail.
"Urine's sterile," Marv said wisely. "They pissed in wounds during the Civil War to stop infection."
"Thanks, Marv," Jed said. "Anyway, we unlocked the gate, and went in up to the Bart room. Ted and I noticed the smoke seemed to thicken. Sure enough, we poked out heads in this little side room, and there was a dead body. Human."
The crowd was silent save for an appreciative whistle. Jed was eating this crowd up with a spoon. "As soon as we saw him, we went back out. We found the cops, brought them in, and showed them where we found him, whoever he was."
"No ID on the body?" Darren asked.
Jed took a sip of beer, tried to act casual. "No, the cops haven't been able to identify him yet. There's tests they do, but I think the lab results are pending." The lab results were pending because the body hadn't been found yet. When we came back with the cops, the body was gone. It hasn't been released to the public yet. Same thing as the probable murderer shooting Jed with a paintball while in the cave. The cops said it'd help the case if we didn't mention that stuff.
"Do you know if the fire killed him, or if he was dead beforehand?" Harry asked?
"Ditto. Lab results pending."
Henry put an enormous hand to his chin. "Say Jed, didja fill them in on the proper access rules for Simpson?" That Jed and I weren't supposed to be there had quicly been forgiven, but the Grotto would happily still dog him on it.
"Yes, and after such heinous behavior I've become their top suspect. I'm just here to say goodbye to everyone before they send me up the river."
"Hey, how'd the cops go through Simpson? Did you lend them gear?" Alex asked.
I got bored of not saying anything, so I jumped in. "They had hard hats and coveralls lying around, but used those giant cop flashlights. Those really put out a lot of light."
I could see the Grotto thinking. Everyone wanted to solve this murder. "Hey, there's only one place to park for that cave," Alex said. "Did you get a look at what car this guy was driving?"
"Yeah," Jed said, "Two of them."
"Two of them?" Henry said back.
"Yep. One was a red Ferrari."
"That should be pretty easy to find," Henry said.
"You'd think. Haven't heard if they found it yet, but then again, the cops aren't calling me every half hour with updates. The other one was a big SUV."
"What make?" Marv's eyes glowed when he heard 'SUV'.
"Forgot to check. If I knew, I'd get their license. Hell, or even the color. Police are checking red Ferraris, though; can't be more than a couple of those around." Jed and I were hoping somone would drive one of those cars to the meeting. No Ferrari, but at least eight SUVs. We should have expected the Grotto to drive a lot of them.
"So is Simpson closed right now?" Marv asked.
"Hell, it was closed when Ted and I went there. There's a 24 hour police guard now. Personally, I don't see the logic of leaving a big fat police cruiser in the parking lot 24/7. Is the murderer going to come back and ask the cop to come back for his empty lighter fluid can?"
There were more questions for a good twenty minutes, which sort of denegrated into a polite questioning of Jed going in any cave whenever he pleases.
That why there's the rift between Jed and the Grotto, by the way. They didn't officially throw him out of the Grotto, but they made it clear that he wouldn't be able to pop into any cave any time of the year and still be a Grotto member. They said he was jeopardizing everyone else's chances of going in caves, as well as making a lousy reputation for us.
Jed's logic was so long as he didn't get caught, and he almost never had, that no harm was done. He was positive the rules were around just for the stupid people who couldn't cave safely.
Me, I didn't try to justify our caving as the morally right thing to do. That was Jed's speciality.
OK, I did. But it was just rationing that if I didn't go in those restricted caves with Jed, he'd go alone. And I knew he'd think a way to justify going alone.
We stood in the parking lot after the meeting, watching the last tail lights drive off as I bummed cigarettes from Jed. "Good meeting, huh Teddy?"
"Yeah. How'd the paintball angle go?"
"Not much." I was asking the Grotto gun owners if they wanted to do paintball some day. None of them owned a paintball gun, but most all of them were up for a game. So no obvious suspects. "Hope I didn't tip anyone off. How'd your list go?"
The list was Jed's pride and joy. There was going to be a search effort to find the body. With no evidence pointing to the body being dragged out, it was assumed the body was deeper in Simpson. There's 6.5 miles of passage, and none of the cops are cavers, so they asked us to get a few good assistants for the day.
Announcing this at a meeting would just be opening the floodgates, so we were hand picking them. "You know that Henry's going. President of the Grotto, had to tell him. But he's not going to be inside, so one less cook."
"I think Harry would be good."
"First on my list. Gunther, too. Scumbag, but he's a good caver."
"How about Darren? He's got military experience, doesn't he?"
"Good idea. OK, Darren, Gunther, Henry, Harry topside. Hey, how about that Alex kid?"
"Couldn't hurt, I guess. Wish I got to help find a body when I was 16."
"23. He's in grad school. Good kid."
"Think that's enough?"
"We don't want too many people trampling a crime scene. Plus, there's the chance a grotto member is the murderer."
"Shut the hell up. It's not a Grotto member."
"Smart money's that this guy's a caver. And most cavers going to Simpson are Garden Staters." He dramatically sucked his cigarette to the filter. "We could be going back in Simpson with the murderer."