Final Assignment: A Promise Falls Novella by Linwood Barclay

else.’
    ‘My head hurts,’ I said.
    ‘No kidding,’ Duckworth said.
    ‘How’s the family handling it?’
    ‘The Blakelocks? Not good. Joel had no love for Chandler or Mike, but he sure didn’t want his sister to do something like this. Parents have got themselves a good lawyer. I think they’re going for the sympathy angle, playing on what Mike did to Joel, that Franny was just trying to make things right. She may be whacko, but she loves her brother very much, feels very protective of him. Maybe that’ll sway a jury.’
    ‘Good luck with that,’ I said.
    ‘Who knows,’ he said. ‘How are the Vaughns?’
    ‘Beyond devastated,’ I said.
    He shook his head sadly. ‘What goes around comes around. I’m not saying the kid deserved to be killed for cyber-bullying, but if he and Chandler hadn’t put that photo online, he’d be alive. Did we or did we not order coffees?’
    ‘We did.’
    ‘Where are they? You can’t have pie without coffee.’ Barry waved to get the waitress’s attention. She was already on the way over with two mugs.
    ‘Calm your ponies,’ she told him. ‘You think I don’t know how to look after you?’
    ‘You had me worried for a second.’
    He took a sip, smiled. ‘Just a few more weeks till the long weekend in May,’ he said. ‘I think I might try to get away. You?’
    I shook my head. ‘Nope.’
    Duckworth went quiet for a moment. Finally he said, ‘This is going to make me sound like Columbo or something.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘There’s one thing that bothers me about all this.’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘Franny’s whole plan was to kill Michael and frame Chandler for it. It was pretty clumsily executed, but she did her best for a kid without a criminology degree. Her plan included stealing Chandler’s baseball bat when he left it by the school bleachers. She figured it would have his fingerprints all over it. So she wears some gloves, whacks Mike in the head with the bat, and supposedly the only prints we’re going to find are Chandler’s. Except we don’t find them.’
    ‘Franny stole Chandler’s bat,’ I said.
    “Yeah. So I thought, maybe between the time she stole the bat and when she used it on Mike, she accidentally rubbed the prints off. Even then, you’d still expect to get a few partials, something. But with one small exception, there are no prints on the bat at all. The whole thing got wiped down. Even though you can still see blood on the bat, it’s all smeared. So if our little friend Franny wants to see Chandler nailed for this, why does she wipe his prints off?’
    ‘What’s the small exception?’ I asked.
    Duckworth said, ‘There’s a partial print right on the very end of the bat. When it was wiped down, that got missed.’
    ‘Chandler’s.’
    ‘No. We took his fingerprints and there’s no match.’
    ‘Franny’s?’
    He shook his head.
    ‘What about the deceased?’ I asked. I raised my arm in a mock-defensive gesture. ‘Maybe he was doing something like this and his hand touched the bat.’
    ‘Nope,’ Barry said. ‘Checked.’
    ‘And there’s no way it was the crime-scene techies?’
    Duckworth closed his mouth on a forkful of blueberry pie. He took a moment to savor it before saying, ‘Not a chance.’
    ‘Where’s that leave you?’ I asked.
    ‘Puzzled,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a full confession from Franny, so I should be satisfied, but I’m not. Got any ideas?’
    I did.

Twelve
    It might have been the first time I’d seen Greta Carson smile. When she opened the door and saw me, her face nearly shattered from happiness.
    ‘Mr Weaver, oh, what a pleasure to see you,’ she said. ‘Please come in.’
    Once I was inside, she said, ‘It occurred to me the other day that all the other times you were here I didn’t so much as offer you a cup of coffee. Can I get you something? If not coffee, some tea? I think I might even have a muffin or two.’
    ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘But thank you.’
    ‘Were you looking for