Linwood Barclay - Final Assignment

Again his mother jumped in. ‘Are you saying he was wrong to write it?’

I turned and looked at her as patiently as I could. ‘I’m just trying to get the big picture here.’ I looked back at Chandler. ‘So why did you write this?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I guess I wanted to bring my mark up in that class.’

‘You haven’t been doing that well?’

‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Ms Hamlin doesn’t like me.’

‘A lot of the teachers have it in for him,’ his mother said quickly.

‘Why would that be?’

Now it was her turn to shrug. ‘I just don’t know.’

‘Have you been in trouble before this?’ I asked Chandler.

‘Um,’ he said.

‘Nothing serious,’ Greta Carson said.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

Chandler grimaced. ‘It really wasn’t that big a deal. Everything’s fine now. We get along and everything.’

I looked at the two of them, waited.

‘Okay, so what happened,’ Chandler said, ‘was me and my friend Mike, we kind of made fun of a guy.’

‘It was harmless,’ his mother said. ‘A prank.’

‘Mike Vaughn?’ I asked. It was my late wife Donna’s friend Suzanne Vaughn who had referred Greta Carson to me. I knew she had a son named Michael.

‘Yes, that’s right. Suzanne’s boy,’ Greta said. ‘We’ve been friends with Suzanne and Elliot for years, and Chandler and Michael have grown up together.’

‘So what was this prank that you and Mike cooked up?’ I asked Chandler.

‘So there’s this guy named Joel Blakelock, and he’s kind of, you know, everybody knows he’s kind of gay, which is fine, right? But there was this thing at school, and he was around back, by the parking lot, and he was sort of making out with some other guy, and me and Mike, well, Mike, he got out his phone and he took a picture of them. You couldn’t see the other guy, but you could tell that it was Joel, and we sort of put it out there.’

‘Out there?’ I said.

‘Like, we posted it. And then everyone else posted it. And Joel got really upset because he kind of thought it was an invasion of privacy and—’

‘They were right out in the open,’ Greta Carson said.

I gave her a look that said, Please.

‘Go on,’ I said to Chandler.

‘Yeah, like he got pretty upset about it, and somebody said he actually was going to kill himself over it but I don’t think that’s true, and Mike and me got in trouble and got suspended for a few days, but then things, like I said, settled down. I’m even sort of like friends with Joel now. Not in a gay way, of course.’ He flushed. ‘But like friends in other ways.’

‘This happened since you’ve been at Promise Falls High?’ I asked. Chandler nodded. ‘And why did you leave the private school?’

‘Oh, that,’ Chandler said.

‘The school failed to meet Chandler’s academic needs,’ his mother said. ‘So we moved him out.’

‘We?’

‘My husband Malcolm and I.’

‘Where is Mr Carson?’ I asked.

‘He’s at work.’

‘What’s he do?’

‘He’s a financial consultant,’ she said. ‘He used to teach business, but then he actually got into it. Those who can do , you know.’

‘Does he know you called me?’

She swallowed. ‘I’ll be bringing him up to speed soon enough. And I hardly need my husband’s permission to engage someone’s services. That’s a very sexist attitude.’

‘My apologies if that’s how it came across,’ I said. I needed to get things back on track. ‘What did you mean, the school did not meet Chandler’s academic needs?’

‘They weren’t challenging him enough, and as a result, his grades suffered.’

Back to Chandler. ‘You were failing and they dropped you?’

‘Kinda,’ he said.

‘That’s not how I would characterize it,’ his mother said. ‘So, regrettably, we had to move Chandler to the school in our neighborhood. I think that’s why the teachers are against him, that he came from a private school. There’s a kind of reverse snobbery going on, if you ask me.’

‘I see,’ I said. I put my hands on my knees, getting into position to stand and walk out of here. But I at least had to ask. ‘Just how were you thinking that I might be able to help?’

‘I want you to get those school officials to change their minds and end this suspension, drop their demands that Chandler see someone for this ridiculous psychiatric help, and apologize.’

I shook my head. ‘You’ve got the wrong guy. If anything, what you want is a lawyer. Not a private detective.’

‘No, you’re exactly what I need,’ Greta Carson said. ‘I want you do dig up some dirt on the school.’

Chandler’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling. He sagged back into the couch, looking as though he hoped the cushions might swallow him whole.

‘Excuse me?’ I said to his mother.

‘It’s a big school, lots of staff. I’m sure some of them have done something they wouldn’t want everyone else to know about. Start at the top, with the principal. Maybe she sleeps around. Or that guidance counselor. I hear she has a weird daughter, some kind of learning disability or something. Good heavens, don’t make me do the work for you. This is your area. This is what you get paid for, isn’t it? Dig around and see what you find.’

‘To what end?’

She laughed. ‘Seriously? Once you’ve got something on them, I’m sure they’ll be much more amenable to dropping this whole business with Chandler.’

‘You want to blackmail your son’s teachers so they leave him alone?’

‘I wouldn’t put it that way,’ she said. ‘I’d think of it as leverage.’

I stood.

‘It’s been a pleasure, Ms Carson.’ I smiled, nodded, then turned to Chandler. ‘Good luck with your writing career.’

As I moved toward the door, the woman trailed after me. ‘Aren’t you going to help us?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Although I think there’s no doubt you need help, Ms Carson.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Greta Carson asked.

I let myself out.

I popped in to say hello to Naman on the way up to my apartment. I was renting a place over his used bookstore, and he was my landlord. He was sitting behind the counter reading an old Bantam paperback edition of a Nero Wolfe novel by Rex Stout when I walked in.

‘How’s it going?’ he asked.

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘You are on a case?’ he asked, grinning. He read a lot of detective fiction and thought what I did for a living was exciting and glamorous. I wished.

‘Turned one down,’ I said.

‘A divorce case?’ he speculated. ‘You don’t do that kind of work because it’s too messy?’

‘Something like that,’ I said.

There was a door off the sidewalk, next to the entrance to his shop, that led up to my place. I trudged tiredly up the stairs, took off my jacket and threw it over the back of a chair, loosened my tie. I opened the fridge, surveyed the contents, and decided it would be tricky to whip up something interesting for dinner with only milk, olives, and strawberry jam.

My cell phone rang.

I found it in my discarded jacket, glanced at the call display.

VAUGHN.

That would be Suzanne Vaughn. I was betting Greta had phoned her to complain that the private investigator she’d recommended so highly had refused to take her case, and insulted her to boot.

I took the call.

‘Hello.’

‘Cal?’

‘Hi, Suzanne. Greta must have called you.’

‘What? No, she didn’t.’

‘Oh. I thought she might have.’

‘That’s not why I’m calling,’ she said. I noticed, now, an edge in her voice.

‘What’s wrong, Suzanne?’