Final Assignment

  ‘But it’s all the same thing,’ Greta said. ‘Isn’t that right, Chandler?’

  He nodded happily, as though she had rescued him. ‘Yeah, it’s like that. It just came to me, and I wrote it down.’

  ‘Honestly,’ Greta said, ‘the worst thing you can ask a writer is where he gets his ideas.’

  ‘Still,’ I persisted, ‘the story must have come from somewhere. A situation, something you experienced, then reinterpreted.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’

  ‘Are Charlie and Martin based on anyone?’

  ‘Charlie and Martin?’

  Was Chandler thick as a brick, or was he just very good at playing dumb?

  ‘The two boys in the story. Are they based on you and Mike? The names are somewhat the same.’

  ‘I don’t know. I guess maybe I named them that way sublimely.’

  ‘You mean subliminally?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘And the girl they’re fighting about is named Katherine. Would she be based on Karen?’

  His eyes widened. ‘You know about Karen?’

  ‘Your mother said you were seeing a girl by that name.’

  ‘Yeah, well, for a while, sort of.’

  ‘Did you and Mike have a disagreement about her?’

  ‘Not lately.’

  ‘But at some point.’

  His eyes seemed to be focused on the wall behind me, as though searching for a way out of this.

  ‘Yeah. A few weeks ago. He was … he and Karen were kind of making out at a party. I found them upstairs in a bedroom.’

  ‘What party was this? Whose house?’ Greta demanded.

  I held up a hand. The problem of unsupervised parties was not on my list of priorities. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I was looking for Karen and going through the house, and I found them. Not actually doing it, but messing around. You know? I was pretty pissed with both of them, but especially him, cause he was supposed to be my friend. We kind of had it out at the party.’

  ‘Had it out?’

  ‘Kind of yelling at each other, shoving each other around.’

  ‘People saw this?’

  He looked at me like I was a science teacher explaining the second law of thermonuclear dynamics. ‘Uh, yeah.’

  ‘Keep going.’

  ‘But we made up later. Him and Karen were a bit high, and they said they didn’t exactly know what they were doing.’

  ‘I can’t believe this sort of thing goes on,’ Greta said. ‘They were high?’

  ‘Mom, please.’

  ‘What about you? Were you high?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I mean, not very.’

  Malcolm looked at his watch again. ‘Good God.’

  ‘So the part in your story about the two friends fighting over a girl named Katherine,’ I said, ‘parallels what actually happened between you and Michael over Karen.’

  ‘Parallels,’ Chandler repeated. ‘I guess.’

  ‘You own a baseball bat?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’ asked Greta. ‘Why are you asking that?’

  Chandler shrugged. ‘I did. Me and some of my friends like to play. Sometimes we do it at the school.’

  This struck me as almost quaint. I had been under the impression that today’s generation of teens had sworn off all physical activity except for texting.

  ‘What do you mean, you did?’

  ‘I lost it. I left it by the bleachers when I went inside to go to the bathroom, and when I came back, it was gone.’

  ‘No you didn’t,’ Malcolm said.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I’m sure I’ve seen your bat. Hang on.’ He left the room and returned about a minute later with a baseball bat in his hands.

  ‘It was in the garage,’ he told Chandler.

  ‘Oh, okay. Maybe Mike found it and left it there.’

  ‘Well, that’s good news,’ I said. ‘But I’m afraid I have some bad.’

  Five

  ‘What do you mean?’ Chandler asked.

  I motioned to Greta and Malcolm, who had been standing this entire time, that maybe they should take a seat. They did, although Malcolm appeared reluctant.

  ‘What’s going on?’ they asked.

  ‘I think you can expect a visit from the police before long. They’re going to want to talk to Michael Vaughn’s friends.’

  ‘Why?’ Chandler asked.

  ‘He’s dead.’

  The stunned silence was short-lived. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Malcolm Carson asked.

  ‘Do you have a lawyer?’ I asked him.

  ‘Why the hell would I need a lawyer?’

  ‘For Chandler. I think there’s a chance he might need one.’

  ‘Why?’ the teenager asked. ‘What happened to Mike? What’s going on? How can he be dead? I talked to him, like, yesterday.’

  ‘Mike was found in the woods near Clampett Park. It looks like he was beaten to death. With a baseball bat. It’s only a matter of time before the police go to the school and find out that Chandler’s story bears a stunning similarity to what happened. Characters with similar names and situations, and the murder you write about in here pretty much predicts what happened.’

  ‘This is totally fucked,’ Chandler said.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ Malcolm said. ‘The Vaughns … I can’t imagine what they’re going through. But surely the story, in and of itself, isn’t that damning?’

  ‘What if it is?’ Greta asked. Suddenly pointing to the computer, she said, ‘Delete it! Just in case. Get rid of it.’

  ‘Greta,’ her husband said, shaking his head. ‘That’s pointless.’

  ‘Then throw out the whole computer!’ she said.

  Chandler gave me a look of hopelessness. ‘There are copies of it,’ he told his mother. ‘The principal has it, my teacher has it. They’ve emailed it to each other.’

  Greta looked desperately at her husband. ‘Can we get them back?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘The horse is gone from the barn.’

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘Never mind.’ Malcolm looked at me. ‘Why did you wait so long to tell us this?’

  I dodged by asking Chandler, ‘When was the last time you spoke to Mike?’

  ‘No, hold on,’ Malcolm said. ‘On whose behalf are you acting right now? Are you working for us? Are you working for the police?’

  ‘I’m trying to find out what happened,’ I said. ‘The Vaughns asked for my help in finding their son. While I was at their house, the police showed up.’

  ‘That doesn’t answer my question,’ Malcolm Carson said.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t. I’m not officially working for anyone. But what I learn may end up helping both you and the Vaughns in what steps you take next. If Chandler had something to do with what happened to Mike, you’ll know enough to get on the phone to your lawyer.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything to Mike!’ Chandler said.

  ‘So tell me when you last communicated with him,’ I said.

  ‘I told you. Yesterday.’ His eyes were starting to brim with tears. ‘This is awful. I can’t believe it.’

  ‘When yesterday?’ I asked.

  ‘Maybe before dinner, something like that.’

  ‘What about later?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You didn’t meet up with him? Get together someplace?’

  ‘That’s not possible,’ Greta said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Chandler was here,’ she said. ‘In the house. Malcolm and I told him he wasn’t going anywhere until we’d sorted out this issue with the school.’

  ‘And the first thing she thought of was to hire you,’ Malcolm said derisively. ‘Nothing against you, Mr Weaver. It’s just not the first thing I’d have thought of.’

  ‘Oh, and what would you have done?’ Greta asked, turning on him.

  ‘I’d’ve asked the same damn questions the school did. Why the hell is he writing something like that in the first—’

/>   ‘Enough,’ I said. ‘Let’s get back to Chandler’s whereabouts. So you can say absolutely that he was here from when you got home from the school yesterday right up to this moment?’

  Everyone exchanged glances. ‘Pretty much,’ Malcolm said.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘He was here, that’s all there is to it,’ Greta said.

  I looked at Chandler, daring him to avert his eyes. ‘Did you leave the house at all last night, with or without your parents’ knowledge? Did you sneak out after they were asleep?’

  His hesitation was all his parents needed to pounce.

  ‘What did you do?’ his father asked.

  ‘Where did you go?’ Greta asked. ‘Oh God, you left the house?’

  ‘Only for a little while,’ he said.

  I was about to ask Chandler how and when he had slipped out unnoticed by his parents when the doorbell rang.

  Six

  Greta and Malcolm Carson exchanged looks of sheer panic. I think we all figured the police had arrived. The doorbell seemed to have paralyzed them, so I got up and answered it myself, expecting to come face to face with Barry Duckworth.

  It was not Barry.

  Standing on the front step was a woman, looking at me through wire-framed oval glasses. Good-looking, mid thirties, straight brown shoulder-length hair, almost as tall as me, and I’m just under six feet. She had an athletic bearing about her, and was dressed in black slacks and a blue sweater with an elaborate puffy collar, a long-strapped purse slung over one shoulder.

  ‘Mr Carson?’ she said.

  ‘No. My name’s Cal Weaver.’

  ‘Oh, well I’m here to see Chandler’s parents.’

  ‘Who should I say’s here?’

  ‘Lucy Brighton.’

  I recognized the name. One of the school officials who’d been at the meeting to discuss Chandler’s story. The head of the guidance department.

  She said, ‘I came by to—’

  ‘Oh great,’ said Greta, who’d been listening from the couch.

  Lucy leaned her head in far enough to see into the living room.

  ‘Hello, Ms Carson,’ she said. ‘Hello, Chandler.’

  ‘Hi, Ms Brighton,’ he said.

  ‘What do you want?’ his mother asked. ‘Haven’t you caused us enough trouble already?’

  ‘I came by to see how Chandler was doing,’ Lucy said. Then, cautiously, ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard …’

  I said, ‘About Mike Vaughn?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said. ‘The police came to the school a short while ago, asking questions.’ She touched the fingers of her right hand to her lips. ‘It’s such a horrible thing. Just horrible. I’m sorry, Chandler. I know he was a good friend to you.’

  The teenager nodded.

  Seeing as how a conversation seemed to be starting, it struck me as rude to keep the woman standing outside. I gestured for her to come in without waiting for Greta or Malcolm to offer an invitation. She moved forward two steps and I closed the door behind her.

  Lucy rested her eyes on Malcolm, probably waiting for the man to introduce himself. I said, ‘This is Malcolm Carson, Chandler’s father.’

  He stood.

  Lucy offered a hand, and Malcolm reluctantly stepped forward and shook it. He’d stopped looking at his watch in the last few minutes. I guessed he’d come to accept that he was not going to make his appointment. Then Lucy turned toward me.

  ‘Are you a friend of the family?’

  ‘I know the Vaughns,’ I said. ‘I’ve only just met the Carsons.’

  Greta, still on the couch, said, ‘Mr Weaver is advising us on … Chandler’s situation.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lucy said. ‘That’s why I’m here. Do you mind if I sit down?’

  ‘We were right in the middle of something,’ Greta said, then turned on Chandler. ‘Were you here last night or not?’

  ‘Like I said, I went out for a little while.’

  ‘I never heard you leave.’

  ‘I think you were asleep. I tried to be real quiet.’

  ‘When was this?’ Malcolm asked.

  ‘Like, around midnight? I just had to get out, get some air. I was stressed out. I went for a walk.’

  ‘Do you drive?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t have my license yet,’ Chandler said.

  ‘Where did you go?’ Malcolm asked.

  ‘Around.’

  ‘Around where?’ his father persisted.

  ‘I walked down to the gas station, bought a Coke, and then walked some more.’

  The station would probably have Chandler on security surveillance video. Telling the police he’d never left the house probably wasn’t going to fly. ‘Where else?’ I asked.

  ‘I went over to Michael’s house. I’d been trying to contact him. I’d sent him some texts, tried to phone him and stuff.’

  ‘Did he get back to you?’

  Chandler shook his head. ‘I didn’t knock on his front door, but I looked to see if his bedroom light was on, or if maybe he was hanging around the house. His light was off and he was no place around there. Then I walked down by Clampett Park and worked my way back home. Just thinking, you know?’

  I walked down by Clampett Park.

  Lucy Brighton was still standing next to me. I asked her, ‘What did the police tell you about what happened?’

  ‘They didn’t tell me anything. They spoke to Ms Caldwell – that’s our principal – and she told me what they’d said.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘That Michael’s body had been found in the woods. That he’d been beaten.’ She hesitated. ‘Probably with a bat. I think it was that bit of information that prompted the principal to bring me in, to ask me what I thought.’

  ‘What you thought about what?’

  Lucy looked from me to the parents. ‘About whether she should tell the police about Chandler’s story.’ She turned back to me. ‘Do you know about that?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What did you tell the principal?’

  ‘I told her I thought I should come out here and talk to Chandler and his parents first. And so here I am.’

  ‘Is there some reason why you or Ms Caldwell wouldn’t tell the police about it immediately?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lucy Brighton said, and asked for the second time, ‘May I sit down?’ There were nods. She took the spot I’d been in, and I stayed on my feet. She trained her eyes on Chandler.

  ‘I was on your side at that meeting,’ she told him. ‘I think students must be allowed to use their imaginations, to write from the heart, to explore ideas that others may find unpleasant, to push the boundaries. That’s what good writers do. I didn’t see what you’d written as evidence of some kind of mental disorder or anything like that.’

  I felt we were all waiting for a but.

  ‘But,’ Lucy said, ‘I did see evidence of something else.’

  She pulled her purse around in front of her, opened it, took out some papers. ‘These are a few of your reports from other classes, other subjects. Samples of your work.’

  She held them on her lap, made no move to distribute them. She seemed to be holding onto them as though they were grenades that might go off seconds after they left her hands.

  She looked at Chandler.

  ‘Is there anything you’d like to say about your story that you haven’t revealed to us so far?’

  Chandler seemed to be squirming beneath his skin. He was a mouse backed into a corner, looking for a way out and not finding one.

  ‘Answer the lady’s question,’ Malcolm Carson said.

  Chandler took a deep breath, let it out slowly. ‘Okay, so there is something I kind of didn’t tell you.’

  We all waited.

  ‘I didn’t want to get in trouble,’ he said. ‘And I didn’t want to get anyone else in trouble.’

  ‘Go on,’ Lucy said.

  ‘I guess I sort of didn’t write it.’

  Seven

  ‘You plagiarized i
t?’ Malcolm asked.

  Chandler shook his head violently. ‘No! I didn’t do that. I would never do that.’ He paused. ‘But someone else wrote it for me.’

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  ‘Joel Blakelock,’ he said.

  Lucy and the Carsons couldn’t have looked more surprised if the boy had told them Ernest Hemingway had come back from the dead to do his homework.

  ‘Chandler,’ Lucy said skeptically, ‘you can’t be serious.’

  It took me a second to remember that Joel Blakelock was the kid Michael and Chandler had photographed making out with another boy, and then posted the photo on social media.

  ‘Honest,’ Chandler said. ‘He wrote it.’

  ‘Wait, I’m not getting this,’ Greta said. ‘You somehow got hold of a story Joel had written and passed it off as yours?’

  ‘The last part, yeah,’ he admitted. ‘But I didn’t steal it or anything. He offered to write it for me.’

  We all exchanged looks at that point.

  ‘Why would he do that for you, after what you did to him?’ I asked.

  ‘It was a kind of peace offering,’ he said. ‘Like, I guess he knows I’m not the best student in the world.’

  He waited a second, maybe hoping someone would offer to contradict him, but when no one did, he continued. ‘I’m not that good at getting assignments in, and I haven’t been doing that good well in Ms Hamlin’s class, so he offered to write a story for me that I could hand in. And in return, Michael and I would leave him alone and never make fun of him again or anything. I mean, we weren’t going to anyway, because we got in so much trouble, but if he wanted to write something for me, I wasn’t going to say no.’

  ‘Did you tell him what kind of story you wanted?’ Lucy asked.

  Chandler shook his head. ‘I didn’t even look at it before I handed it in.’

  That explained a lot.

  I said, ‘Where would I find this Joel Blakelock?’

  ‘Hold on,’ Lucy said. ‘Who are you anyway?’

  ‘I’m a friend of the Vaughns,’ I said.

  ‘The way you’re asking questions, I wondered if you were from the police.’

  ‘I’m a licensed investigator,’ I said. ‘All I’m trying to do now is get to the bottom of this.’

  ‘Well you’re not talking to Joel without me there.’