Final Assignment

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ I said, ‘but still, it sounds like it’s been a while.’ I glanced at my watch. It was one in the afternoon. ‘You know for a fact he didn’t go to school today?’

  ‘We had a call,’ she said. ‘We thought maybe he had spent the night someplace and gone to school from there, but they called, said he hadn’t shown up. I’m sick to death.’

  Elliot tried to comfort her by putting a hand on her arm, but she shook it off.

  ‘When did you last see him?’ I asked.

  ‘We all had dinner together,’ Suzanne said. ‘Then he said he had some homework to do, and later he went out.’

  ‘When?’

  Elliot said, ‘I guess dinner was around seven, but he didn’t leave until around ten.’

  ‘Isn’t that kind of late to be heading out?’ I asked. ‘On a school night, anyway.’

  ‘That’s what I told him,’ Suzanne said. ‘But he said he wasn’t going out for long.’

  ‘Did he say where he was going?’

  They both shook their heads. ‘Just out,’ Suzanne said. ‘That’s about the most you ever get out of him these days.’

  ‘Could he have been going to see Chandler?’ I asked.

  ‘I asked him that,’ Suzanne said. ‘He said Chandler was grounded while his parents sorted out what to do about that story he wrote. That’s why you went over there, right? Why Greta wanted to hire you? She said you were going to find something on the school staff that she could use.’

  ‘Greta’s crazy,’ Elliot said. ‘I mean, we’re friends and all with her and Malcolm, but she can be a complete lunatic sometimes. And Chandler can do no wrong in her book. She’s always made excuses for him.’

  I didn’t disagree with any of that, but I steered us back to Mike. ‘So if he wasn’t going to see Chandler, then who was he going to see?’

  They shook their heads again.

  ‘Does Mike drive?’

  ‘He’s got his license, but he didn’t take the car,’ Elliot said. ‘I think someone might have come by and given him a ride. Just after he went out the door, I thought I heard a car door slam. By the time I looked outside, there was no one there.’

  ‘When did you start phoning him?’

  ‘After midnight,’ Suzanne said. ‘I called him around twelve thirty and left a message, and then again at one, and every hour or so after that. I didn’t sleep a wink.’ She gave her husband a disapproving look, which he caught.

  ‘I guess I went back to sleep after she called the first time.’

  ‘I woke him up at three and said we should call the police, but he didn’t want to do that.’

  ‘You didn’t call Chandler?’

  Suzanne looked regretful. ‘I didn’t have a number for Chandler’s cell phone. If I’d had that, I would have called or texted him. I didn’t want to call the house and wake his parents. I just kept hoping Mike would come home. I called Greta this morning to see if she’d seen him. She said they hadn’t.’

  That was probably the call she’d taken while I was there.

  ‘Does Mike have a girlfriend?’ I asked.

  ‘Who can keep track?’ Elliot said, with what almost sounded like a touch of envy. ‘Every week it’s someone different. The last one I remember was Kate or Karen or something.’

  ‘So he’s popular,’ I said.

  ‘He’s a good-looking kid,’ his father said.

  ‘I can understand your reluctance to call in the police,’ I said to him, ‘but I think it’s time.’

  ‘I told you so,’ Suzanne said.

  ‘You can’t help us?’ Elliot asked.

  I was thinking, but did not say, that if Mike had been in some kind of accident, the police might already know about it. But if he didn’t have sufficient ID on him, or if it was missing, they might be struggling with who he was.

  ‘I’m just one person, and I’m happy to help. But the police will put the word out to everyone they’ve got out there. They’ve got a much better chance of finding him than I do, and in a lot less time.’

  Elliot nodded resignedly. ‘Okay, I’ll make the call.’

  As he walked over to a landline phone on a narrow table that ran along the back of the sofa, Suzanne looked at me wearily.

  ‘The trouble that boys can get into,’ she said, and then looked at me apologetically. ‘I’m sorry. You know better than anyone.’

  I’d lost my son Scott shortly before Donna had passed away.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Hello, police?’ Elliot said. ‘I want to report a missing person. Our son. We haven’t seen him since last night.’

  I was still standing by the front door, and my eye caught some movement outside. I turned my head and looked through the glass to see a police car pulling up to the curb.

  ‘His name,’ said Elliot, ‘is Michael Vaughn. He has brown hair and he’s about five feet, six inches—’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said to Elliot as a uniformed cop got out of the car and started making his way toward the house.

  Three

  ‘Oh dear,’ Suzanne said.

  ‘What is it?’ Elliot said, still holding the phone to his ear. When he saw the cop at the door, he placed the phone back into its cradle. ‘Shit,’ he said.

  I was closest to the door, so I opened it. ‘Hey,’ I said.

  ‘Where’s Michael?’ Suzanne asked the police officer. ‘Do you have Michael?’

  The cop was stone-faced. He was late twenties, and I did not recognize him. He would have joined the Promise Falls police some time after I’d left it and moved to Griffon.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Vaughn?’ he asked. He was glancing at all three of us. He wouldn’t have much trouble figuring out who Mrs Vaughn was, but with me standing there, Mr Vaughn was up for grabs.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Suzanne said, then put a hand on Elliot’s arm. ‘This is my husband. What’s happened? Is this about Michael?’

  ‘I was just calling the police,’ Elliot said. ‘Our son—’

  ‘There’s been an incident,’ the officer said. ‘Michael Vaughn is your son?’

  ‘Oh God,’ Suzanne said.

  ‘What’s he done?’ Elliot asked. ‘Has he done something?’

  He was obviously hoping so. Right now, the idea that his son had caused some trouble beat many of the possible other explanations for the police being here.

  ‘Not that we know of,’ said the cop, who was wearing a name tag that read Osterman. ‘This is a very difficult thing to have to tell you. Someone going for a jog in the woods near Clampett Park found a body a short while ago, and—’

  Suzanne started to wilt. Elliot moved to catch her before she hit the floor. He guided her into a nearby living room chair.

  Osterman waited until she was safely seated before he continued. ‘This jogger phoned the police and we went to the scene, and based on identification found on the body, well, we were led here.’

  Between sobs Suzanne was saying, ‘No, please no, not my baby, not my baby.’

  Elliot said, ‘Someone could have stolen his wallet. It might not be him.’

  The cop nodded. ‘That’s true, but …’

  He turned to me. ‘May I ask who you are, sir?’

  ‘Cal Weaver,’ I said. ‘Friend of the family. Also, a private investigator. The Vaughns called me because they’ve been worried about Michael. They haven’t seen him since last night.’

  I pulled him aside, slightly out of earshot of Suzanne and Elliot. ‘Why’d you hesitate when he said the wallet might have been stolen?’

  ‘There was a student ID in it. The picture matches the deceased, at least as best we can tell.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  Osterman looked between the Vaughns and me. ‘Sir, I really should be dealing with—’

  Elliot said, ‘Cal, would you go? Find out what’s happened. I’m going to have to stay here and take care of Suzanne.’

  ‘I’m afraid I have some questions that won’t wait,’ Osterman told them.

  ‘I’
ll go,’ I told Elliot. ‘I’ll call when I know something.’

  I left Osterman with them and headed for my car. He’d said the body had been found near Clampett Park, which was all I needed to know.

  Half a block away from the park, I started seeing police cars. Marked, and unmarked. I pulled over to the shoulder and walked the rest of the way.

  Three people – two men, one woman – in hazmat-type suits were about thirty feet into the woods just beyond the sidewalk, walking around, staring intently at the ground. They were covered head to toe in white, only their faces exposed.

  I was walking past an unmarked car when I heard someone say, ‘Cal?’

  I stopped, turned, and saw sitting behind the wheel, with the window down, Promise Falls police detective Barry Duckworth.

  ‘Barry,’ I said.

  ‘Hey, Cal,’ he said, getting out of the car and shaking my hand. ‘Good to see you.’

  ‘Good to see you too. How are you?’

  ‘Not bad, all things considered,’ Duckworth said. ‘It’s gonna be twenty years in another couple of weeks.’

  ‘Twenty years with the department?’

  Duckworth nodded. ‘They’re still talking it over whether to make it a municipal holiday.’

  ‘At the very least.’

  ‘I was sorry to hear about what happened.’

  I nodded. I never knew what to say, so it seemed easier to say nothing. Duckworth sensed my discomfort and moved on. ‘What brings you out here? I’m guessing you didn’t just chance by.’

  ‘I was at the Vaughns’ when one of your people showed up.’ I looked into the woods, where I presumed the body still was. ‘The officer said they’d taken an ID for Michael Vaughn off the body.’

  Duckworth nodded slowly.

  ‘And that the photo on it looked a lot like the deceased.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘What’s your connection to the Vaughns?’

  ‘We were friends back when Donna and I lived here. They called me a little while ago. They haven’t seen Mike since last night. Suzanne – that’s the wife – broke down, and her husband Elliot asked me to come out and see what was going on.’

  Duckworth nodded again.

  ‘So what is going on?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re in the early stages of the investigation,’ he said.

  ‘Can I have a look?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nope. Already been enough people wandering around in there messing up the scene. Maybe later, after we move the body.’

  ‘What happened to him? He climb up a tree and fall down and break his neck? Trip on a tree root and knock himself out?’

  Duckworth said nothing.

  ‘Come on, Barry. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t eaten by a bear.’

  ‘Somebody had a go at the kid,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a homicide?’

  ‘I see you still have your keen investigative instincts.’

  ‘Shit,’ I said.

  ‘Look, Cal, leave me your card or something, and if there’s anything I can share with you later, I will. And listen, we should grab a drink some time. Maybe you’d like to come over, have dinner with me and Maureen.’

  ‘We’ll have to set something up,’ I said, even though I knew it would never happen.

  ‘She’d love to—’

  ‘Found something!’

  It was the woman in the hazmat suit. She had something in her hands that she was holding up for all to see. She was grasping it gingerly, careful not to smear the surface of it in any way.

  It was a baseball bat, and even from thirty feet away, I could see it was smeared covered with blood.

  ‘Well,’ said Duckworth. ‘Looks like we got ourselves a murder weapon.’

  I must have done a poor job of hiding my shock at what I was seeing, because Duckworth asked, ‘Something on your mind, Cal?’

  I said no. But I was thinking of that phrase, the one about life imitating art. Or maybe it was the other way around.

  Four

  I got back into my car and drove straight to the Carson house. The first time I’d come here, there’d been a silver BMW in the driveway, but now there was a blue Lincoln SUV parked alongside it.

  Greta Carson looked taken aback when she opened the door and found me standing there.

  ‘Oh, you’re back,’ she said. ‘So you’ve decided to take the case after all.’

  ‘May I come in?’ I said.

  She opened the door wider. ‘Let me guess. You already found something we can use against them. I hope it’s someone high up, like the principal. If you’ve got something on her, we can nip this thing right in the bud.’

  ‘Is Chandler here?’

  ‘He’s up in his room,’ she said. ‘But you should tell me first what you’ve found out.’

  ‘I need to speak to Chandler,’ I told her.

  She sighed with disappointment. ‘Fine, then. My husband just popped in. He was in the garage, but I think he’s back in the house. You might as well meet him while you’re here. Malcolm!’

  A door to the left of the stairs opened, and I caught a glimpse of oak paneling and bookshelves. A ground-floor study. A tall, thin man emerged. Nearly six feet, but he’d have been closer to six-two if it weren’t for the fact that he was slightly stoop-shouldered. He wore a dark suit, white shirt and blue and red striped tie.

  ‘Malcolm, this is Mr Weaver,’ she said.

  ‘You’re the one she called?’

  I admitted it. ‘Yes.’

  ‘When I heard you’d turned Greta down, I thought you had some sense, but I guess I came to that conclusion a little too soon.’

  ‘I need to speak to Chandler,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ Malcolm said. ‘I don’t quite know how we’re going to handle this yet, but it’s not going to be my wife’s way. Honestly, thinking she could blackmail the school by—’

  ‘It’s not blackmail,’ she said angrily. ‘It’s just fighting fire with fire. If they want to cast aspersions on his character, well, we can play that game too.’

  ‘I’ll go in there and talk to them myself,’ her husband said. ‘Give them a little lesson in freedom of expression. This is all a bunch of nonsense.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m supposed to be somewhere in half an hour.’

  ‘Where?’ I asked.

  ‘I have clients. I’m a financial adviser. I stopped by between appointments to pick up some files. It was nice to meet you, Mr Weaver, but I need to be shoving off shortly.’

  ‘I think maybe you should stick around,’ I said.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  I saw that the laptop Chandler’s story had been on was still on the coffee table in the living room. ‘I’d like to read some more of your son’s story,’ I said, tipping my head in the direction of the computer.

  ‘Of course!’ Greta said, giving her husband a sharp, satisfied look, as if to tell him they were going to do this her way, no matter what he thought.

  I dropped myself onto the couch and opened the laptop. When the screen came to life, the story was still on it. I started at the beginning, read it right through to the end. It was only about a thousand words, and I was reading quickly, so I was done in about three minutes. Twice I had to raise my hand when Malcolm Carson started to ask questions.

  When I was finished, I said, ‘Okay.’

  ‘It’s better the second time you read it, don’t you think?’ Greta asked.

  What struck me was not the story’s literary merit, but how close the names of the two characters in it – Charlie and Martin – were to Chandler and Michael.

  ‘Why’d you have to read it again?’ Malcolm asked. ‘The issue is not what’s in the story. The issue is that the school wants to control what its students think.’

  ‘Does Chandler have a girlfriend?’ I asked.

  Malcolm looked as though I’d thrown cold water in his face. Maybe he wasn’t used to people answering his questions with more questions.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ G
reta said. ‘There was a Karen a little while ago, but I think that ended.’

  The girl being fought over in the short story was Katherine.

  But the most troubling part of Chandler’s little assignment was that Charlie had killed Martin by whacking him in the head with a baseball bat.

  In the woods.

  ‘Let’s get Chandler down here,’ I said. ‘Right now.’

  Malcolm moved to the bottom of the stairs and called up: ‘Chandler!’

  A muffled voice from behind a closed door shouted back: ‘What?’

  ‘Get down here!’

  I heard a door open, then thumping on the stairs one might have associated with the approach of a stampeding rhino. When he hit the first floor and saw me sitting at the laptop, Chandler hit the brakes.

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘Mr Weaver is back to help us,’ Greta said.

  I was not unaccustomed to misrepresenting myself in the pursuit of information, but I didn’t want to completely mislead the Carsons. I said, ‘I wouldn’t count on that. I’m just trying to sort out some things before I take my next step.’

  Which might be turning Chandler over to the police for the murder of his friend Mike Vaughn.

  ‘Have a seat,’ I said to him.

  He sat across the coffee table from me, squirmed for several seconds trying to get comfortable.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said.

  ‘When did you write this?’

  ‘I guess two, three days ago?’

  ‘Did you show it to anyone other than your teacher?’

  Did I see something in his eyes? A brief look away? An attempt to avoid eye contact?

  ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘I just gave it to her.’

  ‘And then she showed it to the principal and another person?’

  ‘Ms Brighton,’ he said. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why this story?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Of all the stories you might have thought up, why did you write this specific story?’

  ‘Mr Weaver,’ Greta said, ‘you’re getting to the very heart of the creative process. Why does an artist paint what he paints? How does a songwriter choose the notes he chooses?’

  Malcolm rolled his eyes. ‘I hardly think Chandler’s working in the same stratosphere as Picasso or Gershwin.’